Did you know pasta has numbers? Well it does. You might think the number refers to the thickness of the pasta, like the gauge of wires, but you'd be wrong. It's purely a number assigned by the manufacturer with no corresponding industry standard. It's as meaningless or as meaningful as a model name. Then why bring it up? Because I wanted to! What's more meaningful to you, the cherished consumer, is whether or not the manufacturer uses a bronze die on their extrusion machines. Lately they've been traded out with silicone dies because they're less expensive and more easily replaced. But they tend to produce a smoother pasta, which is undesirable because sauce slips off the cooked noodle more easily, and that's a bummer. Look for "bronze dies" on the package for guaranteed premium pasta. de Cecco is such a manufacturer. So am I. My Bosch machine pushes pasta dough through bronze dies, and boy, are they ever rough. It's fun as heck, but makes a huge mess. The Atlas is easier, but those aren't extruded. Another method is to use a chitarra (guitar), so called because it's a string instrument. A rolled sheet of dough is pressed through taught wires.

This is the volunteer starter collected and cultivated from grain in the Whole Foods bins. Its origin is unknown exactly.

This is what the starter culture looks like straight out of the refrigerator. How it became this little dough ball is another story that tends to complicate the story about a loaf of bread, so let this be the starting point. This is going to take a few days so best to keep a vague plan in mind, although there's a wide margin for variation, once started it's best to keep a general schedule since yeast cultures work best with some regularity, wouldn't want to rush the feedings, nor neglect them.

Wednesday 10:40 p.m. Evening. Bubbles appeared and the mass has grown. That's a good sign that the culture is already quite active. There'll be no limping start. This isn't always true for a culture that has languished in hibernation for long.

Thursday 8:40 am, the next morning. This is what the risen dough looks like. It's not particularly impressive.

The inflated dough picture above was knocked back, at that time, The next morning Thursday morning at 8:40 a.m. and fed 2 Cups water and 5 Cups flour. It has been 10 hours from the last feeding and 19 hours, 25 minutes from the starting time.

The dough was lightly kneaded after allowing 20 minutes for autolysis, then formed into loaves and chilled for a cold proofing period intended to be at least one day, possibly more. So after all the excitement of building up a live culture, we suddenly arrest the yeast activity. This gives the bacterial portion of the culture time to catch up and develop an acid tang along with depth of flavor and texture. A portion was reserved as starter for the next batch. The reserved starter portion is flour and water only, it contains no lecithin, flax oil, olive oil, additional wheat germ, nor any salt.

After two days in the refrigerator and four hours in a proof box on the counter. Removed Saturday at 12:00 noon. Can't be arsked to calculate the hours. It's been a long time. I could have protected them better while they cold proofed and provided moisture after their hibernation and warmed proofed immediately prior to baking, but I forgot. Plus I was being interrupted and somewhat hassled by outside forces that tended to throw me off my game. So there's that. You can see the rolls didn't slice all that well.

Baked at 500℉ for 45 minutes

Baked at 500℉ for 25 minutes.This bread has an intriguing mild tang and classic toothsome naturally proofed texture with irregular air holes.

The idea of crêpes has never really appealed to me. What's the big deal anyway? Wouldn't you just rather have straight up pancakes? Plus, I always thought they should be rolled like little tamales. I got the idea of trying my hand at it, and once I thought that idea there was no dislodging it. That's how my brain works. I didn't use a recipe. I just tossed together ingredients I thought would be good, making sure to use an egg, milk, flour. By whim, I added a spot of clove and cinnamon, melted butter, vanilla, sugar, salt. For the fruit sauces, I just added a little sugar to the strawberries and let them form their own sauce. For the bananas, I used orange juice with corn starch heated in the microwave, more of the same spices in tiny dashes, and a few drops of Grand Marnier®, which I think means "big sailor" in French. Ha ha ha ha. So, this is the result of my spontaneous mad skilzz. It took me about five seconds to eat all that. OK, ten seconds. OK, FINE! ten minutes.

This is but one of the hundred million ways to toss together an interesting, attractive and delicious salad. Must I go down to Racine's and show them how it's done? I'm disappointed they get something so simple so predictably reliably wrong.

I am so well pleased with this culture, collected over a period of a few Winter days out on the balcony. It was very cold. Naturally, the organisms that survived and thrived once cultured were enured to the cold. This means it can be safely frozen without forfeiting any of its characteristics. As a culture unfazed by cold the dough that was made from it continued to rise during the period of cold proofing -- an extended period of two days intended to develop flavor. It has a pleasant, mild, intriguing tang.

Some would call it a kind of maltagliati (literally, poorly cut) because they're not so perfect. Hand cut, with a knife, and with my hands, and then painstaking unrolled individually. They have a tendency to stick while unrolling even though you take steps to prevent that. It still happens. Can you imagine unrolling your noodles one at a time? There has to be a better way, like vigorously toss them in a bowl with flour or something.

Sourdough bread. Yeast culture cultivated from the grain out of the bins at Whole Foods. And, boy, is it ever good. Check out the crumb on that stuff. Nice and open, just like the pros. Click on it and LOOK I said! I aimed it so you could see. Plus cream cheese. Home-made pickled vegetables. Imported olives (variety). One of those olives had two seeds in it !!!! Which hast to be a first in history.

Ran cooked potatoes through a ricer using the disc with BIG holes. --> into the same pot the potatoes were cooked in but presently holding:* diced onion* crushed garlic* the riced (that means squished through a thing resembling a giant garlic press) potatoes back into that pot.* grated cheese* diced olives* chopped sage and parsley* couple of eggs_______

* heat a skillet and add some olive oil* drop a large spoonful of potato/cheese/egg/everything else mixture into skillet*smash into the shape of a hamburger patty.* saute on both sides

Rice cooked with a tad of sugar and vinegar plus about 1/4 teaspoon of curry.25 minutes on low, 10 minutes off the heat. Double the amount of water to rice. It didn't absorb all the water. A little longer wouldn't have hurt. Added rice to sauteed vegetables.

Broccoli and purple cabbage sauted for 5 minutes, finished with a splash of wine. Added rice, dried it in the saute pan. Added shredded Parmigiano Reggiano off the heat.

+shredded sage.

I got this rice out of the bins at Whole foods. They had like six different kinds. It was a tough decision. I opted for brown short grain.